Alexandria

give gripping indigestion. Maybe Theon sat here, unable to get his guts comfortable, until nature carried him off.’

Aulus shook his head. ‘As sauces go it had, for my taste, too much pepper. A piquant little condiment. But hardly lethal, Marcus. Any other possibility?’

‘One.’

‘What?’

‘Theon may not have come here for deskwork. Maybe he planned to meet someone. Your Nemo may have existed, Aulus. If so, we have the usual question: did anybody else see Theon’s visitor?’

Aulus nodded. He was glum. Neither of us relished such an enquiry, given that hundreds of people worked here. If any of the staff or scholars was observant enough to notice who went to the Librarian’s office (not a hope I relied upon), finding the witness among the rest would be difficult. Even if we succeeded, they might not be willing to tell us anything. We could waste a lot of time, yet never get anywhere. Besides, at night, with everywhere quiet and the back rooms deserted,

any mysterious associate who knew how to tiptoe could have reached the Librarian without being noticed at all.

‘Something else is missing,’ I remarked.

Aulus gazed around the room and failed to work it out. I waved an arm. ‘Look again, my boy.’ Still no good. He was a senator’s son and took too much for granted. His brown eyes were as wide set and good looking as Helena’s, but he lacked his sister’s rapid intelligence. He was merely bright. She was a genius. Helena would herself have spotted the omission, or when I asked the question she would have followed my train of thought doggedly until she worked it out.

I gave up and told him. ‘No lamps, Aulus!’

IX

Following my lead, Aulus saw that indeed there were no oil lamps, no sconces, no freestanding candelabra. If this room really was just as it had been found, then Theon sat here at his desk, and died, in pitch darkness. More likely we were right earlier: someone had cleaned up.

We went out to the corridor to ask the little slave. He had scarpered. Three-quarters of a day had already passed since the Librarian was discovered. We needed to act fast. I hailed a craftsman in a scroll-worker’s apron and asked who Theon’s deputy was. He did not have one. On his death, the running of the Library was taken over by the Director of the Museion. He was accommodated near to the Temple of the Muses. We went to see him.

His name was Philetus. A room was not enough for him; he occupied his own building. Statues of his most eminent predecessors were lined up in front of it, headed by Demetrius Phalereus, the founder and builder, a follower of Aristotle who had suggested to Ptolemy Soter the idea of a great institution for research.

Uninvited visits were discouraged. But as the secretaries began their tired rebuffing routine, the Director popped out of his sanctum, almost as if he had been listening with an ear pressed to the door. Aulus shot me a glance. Staff wittered that we had come about Theon; although the Director stressed what a busy man he was, he conceded he would find time for us.

I mentioned the statues. ‘You’ll be next!’

Philetus simpered ‘Oh, do you think so?’ with so much false modesty I saw at once why Theon had disliked him. This was the second most important man in Alexandria; after the Prefect, he was a living god. He had no need to push himself. But pushing himself was what Philetus did. He probably believed he pushed with elegance and restraint - but in truth he was mediocre and bumptious, a little man in a big man’s job.

He made us wait while he bustled out and did something more important than talking to us. He was a priest; he was bound to be manipulating something. I wondered what he was fixing. Lunch, maybe. He took long enough.

Some holders of great public office are modest about it. Surprised to be chosen, they carry out their duties as effectively as the wise folk who chose them anticipated. Some are arrogant. Even those can sometimes do the job, or their cowed staff do it for them. The worst - and I had seen enough to recognise one - spend their time in deep suspicion that everybody else is plotting against them: their staff, their superiors, the public, the men who sell them their street foods, maybe their own grandmothers. These are the power-crazed bastards who have been appointed far beyond their competence. They are generally a compromise candidate of some kind, occasionally some rich patron’s favourite, but more often shoved into this post in order to extract them from somewhere else. Before their time is up they can ruin the office they hold, plus the lives of all with whom they come in contact. They stick in their place using loyal toadies and threats. Good men wilt during their demoralising tenure. Fake reputations glue them dangerously to their thrones of office where they are suffered to continue by government inertia. To his credit, Vespasian did not appoint such men - but sometimes he was stuck with those his predecessors had wished on him. Like all rulers, sometimes he saw it as too much effort to ditch the duds. All men die eventually. Unfortunately, dreary failures live long lives.

‘Settle down, Falco!’

‘Aulus?’

‘One of your rants.’

‘I never spoke.’

‘Your face looks as if you just ate a chicken liver that a bile duct broke over.’

‘Bile duct?’ The Director of the Museion came bustling back in. Overhearing us, he looked perturbed.

I gave him my happiest Good evening, sir; I am your chef for the evening! grin. We had waited so long, it seemed appropriate to greet him again. ‘Philetus - what an honour this is for us.’ That was enough. I switched off the simpering. He had smooth features of an anonymous kind. Trouble had not marked him. His skin looked very clean. That didn’t mean he lived morally, only that he spent hours at the baths. ‘The name’s Falco. Marcus Didius Falco; I represent the Emperor.’

‘I heard you were coming.’

‘Oh?’

‘The Prefect confided that the Emperor was sending out a man.’ The Prefect overstepped the mark, then.

I played it straight. ‘Good of him to clear my path . . . This is my assistant, Camillus Aelianus.’

“Have I heard that name?’ Philetus was sharp. Nobody made it to Director of the Museion without at least some mental ability. We must not underestimate his self-preservation skills.

Aulus explained. ‘I have just been admitted as a legal scholar, sir.’ We all liked that ‘sir’, for different reasons. Aulus enjoyed shameless bluffing, I looked good for my respectful staff, and Philetus took it as his due, even from a high-class Roman.

‘So . . . you two work together?’ The Director’s eyes glittered with wary fascination. As I had suspected, he had a stultifying fear of conspiracy. ‘And what exactly do you do, Falco?’

‘I conduct routine enquiries.’

‘Into what?’ snapped the Director.

‘Into anything,’ I breezed cheerily.

‘So what did you come to Egypt for? It cannot have been Theon! Why has your assistant enrolled at my Museion?’

‘I am here on private business for Vespasian.’ Since Egypt was the emperors’ personal territory, that could mean business on the imperial estates far outside Alexandria. ‘Aelianus is on a sabbatical, taking a private course of legal study. When the Prefect invited me to oversee this business of Theon’s death, I called him in. I prefer an assistant who is used to working with me.’

‘Is there a legal problem?’ Philetus would be a nightmare to work with. He picked up on any irrelevance and needed soothing every five minutes. I had been in the army; how I knew this type!

‘I hope,’ I said gently, ‘I shall find there is no problem . . . Would you like to tell me what happened at the Library?’

‘Who else have you asked?’ A paranoid’s answer.

‘Naturally I came to you first.’ That flattered him - yet left him on his own with finding a story. To save time, I helped him start: ‘Can you create a general picture for me - Was Theon well liked at the Library?”

‘Oh everyone loved him!’

‘You too?’